David Cage: PS3 still "very powerful", people will be surprised at what it can do with Beyond

David Cage opens up on creating a new game at the end of the PS3's lifecycle, explaining that the console is still very powerful and people will be surprised with it after seeing Beyond: Two Souls.
(Beyond: Two Souls, PS3)

The complex architecture of the PS3 has made progress slow for developers but there's still a lot of potential in that black box. We should still be seeing improvements in PS3 games, even this far into the gen. They may not be obvious or mindblowing but there's definitely more horsepower hidden away there.

Bethesda is also script heavy and requires more memory then say GTA4 (a game that if you walk four feet away from your car it goes away). For visuals you can rely on Sony's Cell processor, but the cell isn't going to remember where all the bodies are in Skyrim.

No, there isn't a massive amount of power hidden somewhere, this is 2006 hardware and not some futuristic alien technology, or it becomes magically more powerful by its age.

BUT, we've also seen in the past that every console at the end of its lifecycle gets games that squeeze out the last bits of power out of every till then part of the system that wasn't known how to use before.

If we look at last gen, just see what God of War 2 did on the PS2. Or when looking at the competition, what Fable or Doom 3 did on the XBOX 1 hardware. The XBOX 1 had a Celeron 733Mhz CPU (at that time used in laptops and cheapass PC's that weren't advised for gaming really), a Geforce 3 GPU (that was on the PC market out for years and years already and seen as old tech) and 64MB Ram.

To play Fable on a PC back then took a pretty high spec machine to show something on screen that matched Fable on the XBOX.

We didn't see those games at launch, or even mid consolecycle.

Coming back to this gen and the PS3 specifically, there is more that shows that the PS3 is pushed further, maybe even more so than the 360. Not because it has so much stronger hardware, but because of 2 reasons:

1. PS3's tech was so hard to explore, compared to 360, that now after 6 years of extra hard work the devs know the tricks to achieve the same and all that extra effort might even give the edge in some more

2. Because Sony spend more money on 1st party studios and thus specifically written engines for the PS3 to explore the specific hardware (compared to the 360 that mostly had to run on 3rd party engines, with Epics engine on top), they could squeeze more out of the console. Games like Uncharted show this.

And actual proof that the PS3 even can get one step further is already shown in footage of The Last of Us.

If anyone likes to deny that TLOU isn't again a WOW moment, another step up on whats out there already for the consoles, then one is in denial.

So yes, the PS3 isn't powerful enough to do native 1080p for all games in a high framerate (neither 360, nor I bet even WiiUpgrade), those few that do are always less demanding games in physics, effects, number of enemies on screen etc (same way the original XBOX 1 had 720p for some games though the XBOX 1 component cable pack but always had less detail and stuff going on then other games). BUT at the end of a lifecycle there are always a couple of jewels that make a console shine.

Period, the ones disagreeing are either fanboys of a specific system that dislike another system getting a game like TLOU or in this case Beyond or they haven't looked at what games in former gen(s) were pushed out at the end of the lifecycle that are just true diamonds in their generation.

I understand that the complexity of PS3's inner workings have been a struggle for many devs, but c'mon now, the PS3's been out like 6 years or so, that's plenty of time for anyone to get accustomed to the architecture, the real problem is many devs are just too lazy to put the effort in when they gain large profits regardless.

It takes time to really get the best out of the hardware. It's just too bad some developers seem to need new hardware to jumpstart innovation again. That's why I'm looking forward to this game quite a bit. There is still lots of great ideas they can do now without the need for new systems. It's always nice having that leap forward each generation, but when they don't have to struggle with new hardware they can concentrate more of making a great game while already knowing the systems capabilities.

Completely agree, there's a lot of studios out there just out for the easy money. However there are some devs that will eek out every possible advantage that the cell PS3 has to offer.

Take Uncharted 2 to Uncharted 3, while the improvement was not a massive leap, as 2 was from 1, there were notable improvements in physics, lighting and such. The cruise liner levels in particular highlight this point.

I don't agree it's down to lazy devs rather a combination of publisher cost restraints and less experience with specific PS3 coding. A PC dev can quickly adjust to coding the 360, they can also port code to the PS3 but that means not making use of all the SPE's. But that brings another issue; adding code to make use of the SPE's requires more memory but the PS3 doesn't have extra memory rather it has slightly less usable system memory.

I wonder how many ppl using N4G can use 2 to 3 languages natively - not many I'll bet.

The PS3 is an architectural nightmare with many bottlenecks.the strange CPU, the archaic GPU, the slow Blu-Ray drive. It's a mess and only developers with a lot of dedicated time can make a program that runs well on it. It's a PoS and only Sony fanboys deny it.

And yet with all those supposed faults, the PS3 has the best looking games this generation.

And it's time to put the myth that the bd drive is slow to rest. The bd drive reads/writes at a uniform speed whether it's getting data from the outside of the disc or inside.

DVD drives don't read at a uniform rate. It's slow on the outside, faster on the inside. When you average out the speeds, the diff b/w bd and dvd is negligible. And again, games like GoW3 and Uncharted stream seamlessly with zero loading so why isn't the SLOW bd drive hindering those games?

If even one game can astound with it's visual prowess, it means that the other devs are lazy.

It's actually faster on the outside and slower on the inside. Although it takes exactly the same time for a point on the inside to turn 360%, less data can be written there, whilst on the outside more data can be written there and accessed within that 360% spin.

It's funny how the developers who call it a 'challenge' get good results and the ones who call it 'hard work' are the ones who do the bad ports! Since when was working for a living not 'hard work' for most of us!! It's down to laziness!!

to be fair, a game like uncharted doesn't have half of the variables that come with open world/sandbox games like skyrim. just being able to pick up and move objects, alone, creates a nearly incalculable amount of outcomes.

now imagine finally getting those variables under control so that when you pick up an orange, it doesn't go flying or interfere with other elements of the game. im sure it takes tons of time. then you have to optimize it for a whole other system while maintaining the control of the variables.

point being - it takes tons of time and space/memory to make an open world/sandbox game. so hindered graphics on those games isn't due to lazy devs.

It is an architectural nightmare. I don't know why, people are still under the impression that its immensely powerful. It was fast back in 05, yes. And for the price you couldn't get a CPU that could output the same FLOPS. IBM designed that CPU for that exact purpose, mass calculations, not rendering.

Microsoft took the exact opposite approach. Give devs no access to the hardware, and augment their engines via DX9. What people never talk about, is that the next gen game systems, Xbox potentially could have 100% back compatibility by nature of their approach.

ritsuka666, maybe a bit too black and white. The PS3 is a good console, and it has delivered some awesome games, both graphically a technically.

But, I'm sure it could do a lot more if it wasn't for some of the limitations you mention. Slow Blu-ray drive, far to little memory are the main bottlenecks for the PS3.

That's why load times are so bad and we often see low quality textures on the PS3.

Only games that have been built from the ground up, around these limitations, really shine on the PS3. All other games suffer when compared to their X360 and PC counterparts.

I really hope that for next generation Sony creates a better more streamlined console that is easy to develop for.

I have 2 PS3 at home (bought one at launch) and I have an AlienWare PC, I find myself playing more and more on the PC. It's a pleasure to use with hires gfx, ssd disk, and tons of memory. The PS3 is really showing its age, everything is so slow, load-times are almost unbareable, it high time for a PS4 console now. I still play a lot of GT5 on it though.

And there's your reason why PS3 owners ended up with a lot of inferior multiplatform games. Fanboys like to believe it was because of "lazy" developers and the XBox 360's supposedly outdated hardware. PS3 owners getting shortchanged on mulitplatform games lad little to do with either and plenty to do with Sony's own questionable hardware design choices. As a result, developers opting for rival consoles as the lead platform or making the game exclusive to them altogether.

Calm down he's boasting PS3's supposed power on static linear QTE style game with baked in visuals. More like an interactive cutscene than a game.

Showing PS3 power would involve a game with dozens of AI on screen in a open world with coop and processing all the human and AI action with vehicles all over that place on the air and ground.

Battlefield 3 would be a better test vs beyond(pc version of BF3 looks better than consoles and has more going on with more players because it requires the full capability of hardware, BF3 is one of the most technically demanding games on consoles with Skyrim being the most. Crysis 2, forza 4/H being in the same group

"with Skyrim being the most" Says who? What is this based on? As far as I can tell Skyrim is a very poor game visually with not much going on, it's just spread out over a large world. Is this the "Skyrim doesn't run very well on PS3 so the PS3 is bad" argument again? Incase you didnt notice, it runs poorly on all platforms, even PC. The only difference is P.C guys can mod it to fix the mess.

As for this "Calm down he's boasting PS3's supposed power on static linear QTE style game with baked in visuals. More like an interactive cutscene than a game."

Supposed power? Uncharted, Killzone prove the PS3 is a powerful piece of kit. The interactive cutscene BS you're on about is just you being a fanboy. And have you even seen the God of war 3 visuals? the scale of the battles? & ascension looks EVEN better.

Resistance 2 had 8 player online CO-OP with about 40 enemies on screen at a time and ran fine. Also had 60 player versus matches.

MAG has maps that hold up to 128 players that also runs fine, you can literally just run across the map to see an entirely different battle going on.

What's this whole "interactive cutscene" that I always hear flying around? I BET that the same ones complaining are the ones who played and enjoy Quantic Dream's previous game, Fahrenheit (which followed the exact same format as Heavy Rain). Damn hypocrites.

Fahrenheit, just like Heavy Rain and soon Beyond: Two Souls have just as much gameplay and control as they do cutscene. In fact, with Beyond, the ratio leans more towards gameplay than it ever has done. You are in control, you choose how to play, you move your character(s) around in the game world and interact with the environment in a traditional way. How is that description an "interactive cutscene" rather than a game?

It sounds to me like ignorant, impatient and console kiddies that want big explosions and find adventure games boring, and can't face games that are different to the norm. All I see here is hate on QD's games now that they are exclusive to Sony.

It's very clear from what is on offer next year that there is still plenty of power to access yet on the PS3. On a controversial note, I think it will take at least 2 years for the Wiiu to equal the quality of The Last Of Us. This could be something of a problem when advertising the Wiiu as a next generation console.

Couple that with the Vita/PS3 combo and we could see history being made: Baring in mind that it's the 'concept' that Nintendo will advertise, It could be argued (or at least perceived) that the PS3/Vita combo is actually a new 'bridging' generation... PS3.5 if you will. Which of course will transfer over to the PS4 when It finally releases and the Vita becomes the alternative controller for that too.

It's going to be one of the most interesting generations we've ever seen.

I don't think so, when we haven't seen games like Aliens CM running on the WiiU. TLOU looks good for a PS3 game, but the graphics aren't as great as you are making them out to be! I would go as far as to say even AC3 on WiiU is more detailed then TLOU, just compare the character models, scenery and environments from each game...

There's ALOT of PS3 games that run 1080p 60fps, but is that then end be all?? NO ALOt of games run 720p and look and run just as good you can't tell when res a game is until your TV tells you or some1 on a website tells you, So stop worrying about 1080p and enjoy the games.

The plane crash sequence followed by the desert scene and the ghost town are still to be beaten by any game (even on pc) nowadays, it's just too damn good, both gameplay and graphic wise. I still can't understand people who completely bash UC3 when it has such mindblowing moments.

Just because it is on PC doesn't make it crush consoles. Most PC games still don't put as much effort into games as developers like Naughty Dog. Many newer PC games still aren't far ahead of Uncharted. I game only on PC and I know this. Many PC games are better visually but they certainly don't crush the best looking console games.

Nothing. MS first party games/exclusives still offer the best performance/visuals on the system when compared to multiplats. The only reason you don't see games that look as good as Beyond and Uncharted 3 is because, regardless of developer friendliness, the 360 simply isn't as powerful as the PS3.

"Realisation of the characters in Beyond is exceptional: skin shaders, materials, lighting and animation is second-to-none. Quantic Dream promised to take performance capture to the next level after LA Noire and it's difficult to argue that the results are anything other than superb. As with all the images on this page, clicking on the thumbnails gives you the full image."

"The overall impression is that Beyond looks to be setting a new standard for what is possible on current-generation consoles. In many ways it looks too good to be true, to the point where quite rightly you may be asking if this is real, and if so, what compromises are in effect? A forensic look at the footage available does indeed suggest that it is all generated in real-time by the PlayStation 3, and that stands to reason as it does seem to be the case that frame-rate is rather choppy in the gameplay materials released so far. The arrival of powerful light sources in the scenes does seem to see frame-rate tumble." http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...

@FFkI don't think that's possible. Since game animations and actual live-recording are 2 very different things. Once gameplay hits below 30fps you start to notice things to get very choppy. In other words, I don't think frame-rate in films can apply to games.

Sony chose a more complex architecture of the PS3 to make it last 10 years life cycle they promised and we can already see that today because the best is still to come and each title overpowers its predecessor.

I dont understand those EA and others who wanted new consoles already last year and none of them maxed the PS3 yet.

Well, Cage still had to lower resolution of Beyond to get those good looking faces in real time. And its not like that game is open world or something, its very tightly scripted game, yet they still had to lower resolution.

Well entire game has black bars on top and bottom, so they render it at 1280x576 but instead of upscaling they just cut the bottom and top (like BF3 has done, only much more) so they don't lose sharpness.

I was more thinking of the PS3 inferior version of the same multiplatform game. We have seen this with many games and that's too bad because PS3 can do much more so instead the third party publishers try to solve the problem and make games do PS3 justice they just speed things up and claim they want new consoles.

but how does story has anything to do with the console technical power?

I thought we were talking about the alien technology of ps3 that people still haven't been able to fully understand..... yet (like how can you get more performance out of it with such low RAM. Developer need alien software to ran that alien technology)

People keep ditching large scale/sandbox game for not being technical. Just go and read about Kojima and why he has to compromise resolution, textures, etc...just because he want to make the new MGS game open world.

Of course i use Kojima cause it seems people on n4g only trusted him, but never trust any other developers who also says similar things for years.

Honestly, i'm not that up on it. From what i can tell the SPU's are each given their own assignments which there are 6? of.

So take a bus stop for example. On most computers you have one bus that runs say 30 people back and forth to wherever their given destination lies with a full tank of gas (gas =memory)

On PS3 you have 6 busses running at once, each doesn't have a full tank but are given certain destinations (assignments) so that a full tank is not required thus making savings in the mileage as each bus is going to different locations.

That is my understanding anyways, let me know if any of that didn't make sense :-/

So Let say with one bus and full tank of gas, you can go to 7 places back and forth. With cell like, you can go to 7 places simultaneously and the total gas divided equally for each location. Does that mean that it is efficient when you know exactly where to go?

What happen if you constantly changing the location? If it constantly changing, will it still work efficiently given that the amount of dedicated gases are fixed for each bus?

This games looks phenomenal but David Cage wants you to play it once? What's that mean, no DLC or anything? Sony proved they can produce fantastic visuals and come up with an original story with original characters along with original gameplay. Which is Sony's expertise

The problem is the replayabiltity, 6 to 7 hours is what David is asking. That's a about average for a single player game which is somewhat short. So play it once and retire I don't think I can do that.

David said he doesn't want you to have fun with the game but yet implying he wants you to take it seriously? That's cool in all but you can't lose the fun factor, the most important factor in video games is the fun part of it. Serious moments are indeed needed no doubt but the most crucial formula of making a game, is to make it fun.

Sony has all the talent to create breath taking atmospheres. Suspenseful and unpredictable gameplay pure original characters an settings and aw-inspiring aesthetically pleasing environments.

But I'm questioning the other side on what makes the exclusives stand on its own. Which is how much content it has, devs providing fresh new content regularly to keep the people playing.

Somehow I like the supernatural feel Cage is trying to go with that ghost and afterlife stuff. If he can really touch and explore the definition and emotions of death, this can really be something amazing. I just want some fresh experience as well, more solid gameplay mechanics, QTE's are ok if used wisely.

"......and he’s actually more than happy to be making a new title at the end of this console cycle."

What are we talking about, the PS2 is now at the end of it's cycle. The PS3 have a lot of steam and scope for new titles left yet! The PS3 will probably in parallel last a good share of the PS4's life cycle just like the PS2 did during the PS3 lifecycle.

Que people making comments dropping words like "engine" and "architecture" without any understanding of the meaning or concept behind them.

*glances up* :( too late.

edit: on a technical level the PS3 is tapped out when it comes to the exlusive software available for it. The engines used made with the PSGL API pretty much open up the entire hardware to be used, therefore it is utilized fully; from the GPU to the CPU to the SPUs.

This is the same now with middleware companies such as Epic and their unreal engine. This engine being used in games now, can as well use the majority of whats available from the PS3 including the 7 SPUs (source: CPP technical landscape presentation on Dust514).

yeah, we aren't going to see any amazing enhanced graphics past what has already been done on PS3...this is just developer hype to the clueless masses who will think "WOW, I'll be at the cutting edge of computing!"...

Gangnam style,just a thought,if pc has such more ram and power ect why dont we see games that blow uncharted and last of us clean out the water.if anything some games may look slightly better. Only slightly.. Strange but true

Because developers rarely push PC power to its limits, since they are often just ports of console titles. Pretty common sense. Take skyrim, on a maxed out PC, with an ENB mod and high resolution texture packs, it pretty much shits on anything you can play on PS3.

Even if they have somehow tapped some extra 10% or whatever out of the PS3, it still would operate at a fraction of the computing power of modern PCs.

That said, you don't have to worry about upgrades, viruses, etc. Games like the upcoming Star Citizen, or even dishonored on PC shows how behind consoles are.

It is pretty easy to understand, PC's can never use full power like a Console can on a game at least for now they can't.

That is the main difference they are literally both PC's but ones main focus and main use of all the hardware is put into mainly one process or just a couple.

Where as a PC alone has tons of things running the background constantly and sometimes even hundreds of processes running all at the same time which take more ram and cpu power.

I can't install Ableton Live on my console, I can't use hard core video editing software on a console.

PC's will always be better gaming machines and overall better multimedia devices, they just at times will be behind every time a new console comes out but they will slowly catch up as they always do because generally everything used in consoles mainly derives from PC's anyway.

So it is easy to understand why a Console is able to run game so much smoother and push out more power towards a game than even a PC that surpasses every aspect of the consoles, though it may it's resources are being used so much more heavily than on any console.

Plus if you haven't noticed Consoles some what killed the PC gaming industry.. Once Consoles took off, people stopped selling PC games almost completely so much so you could not even trade them in anymore.

I mean most games don't even provide a version for PC anymore...

For instance take Fable a game that started on PC, then moved to Xbox. Fable 2, not even on PC at all.

Luckily they are making another Fable and finally bringing it back to PC those bastards.. but you get my point.

Another thing is a lot of people aren't smart enough to build their own PC's so they assume buying a console to game on is more affordable.

and.. Then again most people have consoles and can't afford a nice PC. So developers are going to make games for what sells bottom line.

It also cost developers more to put out a game on more platforms than just one. So thats another reason because people are so broke these days, they just can't afford to do that as much as they would love to.

I am sure any developer would love their game to be able to exist on all platforms but it just ain't that easy.

PC games just don't sell as well as they used to either which doesn't help at all bring these games to PC..